The Weirdest SE 781BC Vernier Caliper Ever Experienced

Although my expectations were not too high from these calipers, I was still surprised by what looked like the strangest calipers I have ever seen. The machining was extremely poor for a production item and I wouldn’t have taken them seriously if I had known beforehand how bad the machining would be. Even machine like SE 784EC Digital Caliper has poor LEDs. I have been working as a machinist for many years and have experience working with a large variety of tools to make and check various parts but this is the first time I have seen a vernier caliper graduated in 1/128 inch units. This is not something you see normally as calipers are calibrated in 1/10 or 1/1000 of an inch. The strange calibration of these calipers however make it very hard to comprehend the readings. The main scale consists of 1/16 inch SAE and 1mm metric gradations. The vernier scale contains 1/128 inch and 0.05 mm markings.

At first it looked like it had been misprinted but I still cant figure out the reason for not making both scales in decimals as is the norm. The metric scale atleast works normally and showed an accuracy upto 0.05mm when checked using a 2” standard. So this caliper can be used if your measurements are in metric units.

The imperial units however didn’t seem to lineup as accurately as they should have.One of the main reasons for this lack of accuracy is the finishing on the inner surfaces of the measuring jaws.

Although the outer surface of the jaws has a brushed finish, the most important inner surfaces seem to have been treated in a very crude fashion. It almost looks like they were cut with a rough saw and the surface resembles that of a file! This makes the readings very inaccurate as the jaws don’t close properly.

Furthermore the case has sharp edges and the lid was broken when it arrived. The poor machining was also evident from the bur from the punch press still showing on the surface despite the fact that it had a brushed finish. It seem like the steel was passed through the sanding machine before going into the punching press which doesn’t make any sense. This also makes it look like the punching dies that were used were extremely worn out. A similar problem seems to occur with the scale. The markings are difficult to see and may require some additional agents to make them more prominent like the gun barrel bluing that I plan to use on them.

In conclusion these are hands down the worse pair of vernier calipers I have had the misfortune of using. It almost seems that the manufacturers did this on purpose. I think the people who manufactured these calipers didn’t care about their product at all and should be ashamed of their work. It looks lie they were made by farmers or somebody who knew nothing about making tools in the first place.

These calipers are so bad I think a blind man could have made them better. I cant think of anything good to say about these calipers and they have made it to the top my worst tools list without question. I advise all people to stay away from these calipers and not to waste their money on it.